Newsstand: Why Notre Dame changed its travel plan to Ireland for Navy game
Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman told BlueandGold.com in June that the Fighting Irish’s travel plan to Dublin, Ireland, was all but finalized. Then he took a family vacation to Hawaii. Things changed.
The Freemans came back to the continental United States on a redeye flight. The plan was for the Irish football team to take a redeye from the Midwest to Dublin the Wednesday before Saturday Aug. 26’s overseas season-opener. Not anymore.
Redeyes are a no-go now for Freeman.
“What it did was give me a real-life experience of what our players will feel like when we leave on a Wednesday night and land there on Thursday morning,” Freeman said on ESPN’s College Football Live on Thursday evening. “So, I kind of tweaked the plans a little bit just through my own experience.”
Coaching college football is one of those professions that never leaves you, even on vacation. Leave it to a return trip from Hawaii for Freeman to make a change to something as serious as the entire Irish football team’s travel itinerary for a monumental season-opening game.
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The Irish are playing in Dublin for the first time since 2012. They beat Navy 50-10 at Aviva Stadium, the same site of this year’s matchup. There are 43 days until the Irish and Midshipmen kick off the 2023 college football season.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Freeman said. “We’re looking forward to a challenge and playing Navy in Week 0. But there are some logistical challenges that we have to prepare for.”
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It hasn’t taken Freeman long to turn into a college football icon.
When Sam Hartman speaks, the people listen.
This is what gives Hartman some of his authority; he’s one of college football’s most experienced signal-callers.
Quote of the day
“Not everybody that we recruited at Penn State, we’re recruiting here. Just because I’m like, ‘Nah, that wouldn’t be a good fit here.’ So, you kind of bail on some of those and go find somebody different.”
— Irish men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry on his recruiting approach in South Bend
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